Anyone can say anything that they want to say online. People can make up identities and pretend to be whomever they wish. The same holds true for home – based business opportunities. There is a person or a group of people behind every home-based business opportunity that you see on the internet, and they may not have your best interest at heart. Since it is the beginning of the year, many people have found fresh inspiration to work on making their dreams of becoming a home-based professional come true. Falling victim to a home-based business scam can not only set you back financially, it can set you back mentally and in the worst of cases could even cause you to abandon your home-based aspirations entirely.
With this in mind, I have compiled a few tips for avoiding home-based business scams. One very helpful strategy is to turn yourself into a skeptic. Not all of the time, mind you. I’m talking about creating a “skeptic hat” of sorts that you put on when you evaluate the various home-based business opportunities that appeal to you. Cultivating a skeptical mindset is hard for some people. I know, because I am not naturally skeptical. In fact, I’m quite gullible. Anyways, you must put on your “skeptic hat” and look at home-based business “opportunities” with a critical eye so that you choose something that is right for you and is not a scam.
Now that you are wearing your “skeptic hat”, your next mission is to get beyond the initial message (the advertisement) and find out what the so-called opportunity is really all about. A good way to do this is to compile a list of questions that you can copy and fill out each time you evaluate a business. Some basic questions might include whether you need to invest any money up front and how much, what kind of training must you do before you can begin earning money, how long the training takes, whether you must recruit others to become involved in the business, who you can call for support, whether the business has any kind of accreditation, and so on. The questions that you put on your list will depend upon what your needs are. Also, try doing a Google search with the name of the business and “scam” or “review”. When other people fall for scams or get tricked into a business opportunity that is different than what it appears to be, they often are quite upset and are not shy about posting information about their bad experience online so that other people can be forewarned. Another important thing to do is to actually call and talk to a live person about the business. You can tell a lot about the business by how your call is handled. If there is no phone number to call, that is a major red flag and you should not pursue that particular “opportunity”. Above all, listen to your gut, not the hyped up advertisements. Remember, the information that you see when you locate a business opportunity online is designed to get your attention and inspire you to act quickly, before you think things through.